Zoning, religion at heart of spat over industrial park

The Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners heard
both sides Wednesday in an appeal that pits the Jehovah’s Witnesses
against Harrison Township.

The dispute stems from a plot of land that, through some
legal wrangling and a Joint Economic Development Agreement, Harrison
Township officials say can only be used for industrial purposes that
create jobs.

The Southwest Ohio Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses
wants to build a massive assembly hall that they say would be a draw to
the 28,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in the region and create jobs in
surrounding service sector businesses.

The Hamilton County Rural Zoning Commission denied
permission to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, citing fear over the impact to
local businesses and traffic, causing the religious group to appeal the
decision to the Board of County Commissioners.

Board President Greg Hartmann said commissioners would set a date in the coming weeks to arrive at a decision.

Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes lawyer Chris Finney represented the Witnesses before the board.

Finney argued that the Zoning Commission was wrong to deny
permission to build the assembly hall. He pointed to the positive
economic impact such halls have had in other states and brought
witnesses to testify about the potential impact it could have on
Cincinnati.

According to a slide show presented before the board, the
hall could result in $1.19 million in annual tax revenue and create 421
jobs in the service industry surrounding the site.

Being a religious institution, the hall would be tax-exempt and would be staffed by volunteers.

Harrison Township officials argued that the area was
created under a special agreement that requires industrial use and that
any businesses located there create jobs and enhance economic
development.

Mayor Joel McGuire said the township had offered up other
locations for the assembly hall, but the Witnesses were fixated on the
one.

“That’s why we’re in the all-or-nothing situation we’re in
because they insist on this particular spot as opposed to the many
other locations where there’d be no problems at all,” McGuire said.

A media furor has erupted over a “newly released” letter to Pope Paul VI that indicates he and the Vatican knew about child sexual abuse by priests almost 50 years ago.

News accounts report the 1963 letter was released by attorneys in California who represented sexual abuse victims in the Los Angeles Diocese. In fact, those same attorneys have previously released numerous damning documents that got little media attention until now.

The Rev. Robert F. Poandl will stay at missioners residence in Fairfield during investigation

For the second time in three years, a Catholic priest has been pulled from parish duties from out of state and returned to Greater Cincinnati following allegations of sexual abuse.

The Rev. Robert F. Poandl was relieved of his ministry assignment as pastor of Glenmary missions in Georgia earlier this month and ordered to return to the Glenmary Home Missioners residence in Fairfield.

The action was taken after the Rev. Chet Artysiewicz, Glenmary president, was informed of an allegation of sexual misconduct involving a minor against Poandl. The abuse allegedly occurred about 30 years ago. Poandl, who is 70, has denied the allegation but isn’t allowed to publicly function as a Catholic priest during the investigation process, Artysiewicz said.

Artysiewicz is Poandl’s direct supervisor.

Police have been notified of the anonymous allegation, as have bishops in the dioceses affected by the investigation, including the Diocese of Savannah where Poandl was serving. The chairperson of the Glenmary Review Board was notified on Feb. 11, and an internal investigation was launched to determine the allegation’s credibility.

"I am committed to maintaining accountability and transparency as this investigative process unfolds," Artysiewicz said in a prepared statement. "Father Poandl and I have both pledged our full cooperation in this investigation, and I will do whatever I can to meet the pastoral needs of all those involved."

The turn of events prompted the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to write to 11 bishops in dioceses where Poandl worked, asking them to use their resources to contact others who might have been sexually abused by him, but only one in Texas replied.

He is originally from Metuchen, N.J., and studied in Ohio, Indiana and Mexico.

After the most recent allegation, SNAP has urged Artysiewicz to put Poandl in a secure treatment center away from children and pro-actively seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered from his alleged crimes.

In other news of possible priestly misconduct, jury selection continued today in a Philadelphia case involving two priests charged with rape and a monsignor charged with protecting them.

Monsignor William Lynn lost a bid to have his case thrown out based on new evidence found in a 10th-floor safe at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. A memo turned over by the archdiocese this month states the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua ordered his top aides to shred a list of 35 accused priests still in ministry in 1994 — a decade before the child abuse scandal became widely publicized.

Lynn said he prepared the list and gave it to Bevilacqua after he became secretary for clergy in 1992 and started reviewing secret archives of priest abuse complaints. The complaints were kept in a secure room, rigged with an alarm, at the archdiocese's downtown headquarters.

A small group of protestors from the controversial “God hates fags” church in Kansas marched outside downtown's Duke Energy Convention Center this morning to oppose another religious group holding its nationwide meeting there.

The group from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., picketed the North American Christian Convention, the annual meeting ofchurches, colleges, institutions and missions programs associated with the Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ organization. About 10,000 people are expected to attend.

Senator announces support for gay marriage two years after son comes out

Terrace Park isn’t the likeliest of neighborhoods for
Cincinnatians to mingle with diverse groups of people, so it wouldn’t be that
surprising if Sen. Rob Portman maybe didn’t have much experience interacting
with gay people before his son came out two years ago.

But boy what a difference a gay son and two years of
reflection make.

Portman had to prepare his own coming out speech yesterday,
this one to his GOP senatorial brothers and sisters, none of which support
same-sex marriage. Imagine how nervous he must have been, sleeves rolled up,
flag pin hanging slightly askew as he spoke to reporters in response to the
op-ed he published supporting gay marriage. If he stuttered at all it’s not
because he wasn’t earnest — he just really loves his son.

Two years ago Portman’s son, Will, was a freshman at Yale when he came home and explained that being gay “was not a choice,” which seems
to have resonated with Dad. Portman consulted with religious leaders and other men
who have been anti-gay even though they have close family members who are
homosexual, like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who probably said something
like, “Dude, it doesn’t matter anymore now that Obama is talking about queers
in the State of the Union and shit. Roll Tide.”

Portman explained his new found interest in respecting
millions of fellow humans this way: "[I
want] him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have
— to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years.”

Portman says he would like to see congress overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a
redundant and discriminatory piece of legislation banning federal recognition
of gay marriage, which he helped pass in 1996. But he still doesn’t think the
federal government should tread on the states and make them recognize it if
they don’t want to.

Meanwhile,
in Washington Harbor, Md., Republicans at the Conservative Political
Action Conference yesterday discussed their bigotry during a panel called
"A Rainbow on the Right: Growing the Coalition." The featured speaker
was Jimmy LaSalvia, whose Republican gay-rights organization GOProud wasn’t
allowed to sponsor the conference.

While gay-rights leaders celebrate the support and the
possibility of other powerful Republicans realizing that they know and care about
someone who is different, the announcement brings attention to other
conservatives trying to remove yuckiness from the party’s official stance on
homosexuality and gay marriage.

Jon Huntsman, a GOP presidential candidate in 2012 who had endorsed civil
unions, said this year that he supports marriage rights. Furthermore, he framed
it in conservative terms.

"There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the
ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love," he
wrote.

And Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general for President George W. Bush,
has been one of the lead attorneys challenging California's Proposition 8, a
ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage in that state. (Portman fretted in
his op-ed that a court decision might hamper the political movement toward
legalizing gay and lesbian weddings.)

And Fred Malek, a Republican power-broker, told NBC News this week that
conservatives shouldn't feel threatened by gays and lesbian couples who wish to
marry.

"I've always felt that marriage is between a man and a woman, but other
people don't agree with that," he said. "People should be able to
live their lives the way they choose. And it's not going to threaten our
overall value system or our country to allow gays to marry, if that's what they
want to do."

Nearly a quarter of Republicans reportedly support same-sex
rights, leaving the door open for plenty more GOP leaders to search for gay family
members on Facebook who might offer insight inspirational enough to frame their
own stories of new found compassion and respect for other people.

A priest who previously was the campus minister at Xavier University has been relieved of his duties by the Catholic Church after it learned about "the improper touching" of two minors several years ago in Maryland.

The allegations against the Rev. Louis Bonacci were investigated by the church's Province Review Board, which also has contacted civil authorities. Bonacci served as minster at Xavier from 1994-99. Until the allegations were made, he was serving as coordinator of spiritual direction for priests and deacons in the Diocese of Scranton, in Pennsylvania.

There are protesters who have been standing outside of a pediatrician’s office almost daily since at least the summer. Why? Someone else in that same tiny complex is offering abortions. A woman who has taken her special needs daughter to that pediatrician’s office for more than 20 years was recently told by her minister’s wife that she needed to switch pediatricians. Abortion is “murder,” of course, so going anywhere near the “scene of the crime” must make her a co-conspirator.

On the opposite side of town is a Catholic organization made up of young people who were praying the rosary daily in hopes of a veto on the law that required Catholic employers to provide health care that included birth control coverage. Furthering their attack on small families are two Republican candidates for president. Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney seem to want to reverse the bill that legalized the sale of contraception.

Yes, the Bible says “Be fruitful.” The Bible also says to take care of children. Statistics from UNICEF report that in 2009 roughly 2.1 million children are currently orphaned in America. Who is taking care of them? Should anyone be so adamantly against birth control when they’re also clearly unwilling to help take care of the result from a lack of birth control?

Before abortion was legalized, women were forced to take to back alleys in order to end unwanted pregnancies. Those terminations consisted of the use of things like scalding water or hangers. Many women contracted infections from those unsterile and unsafe methods. Too many women died from those infections. Why wasn’t anyone looking out for them?

Many of the comments we’ve received at CityBeat in response to coverage of these issues have focused on the sinfulness of abortion and birth control (and, of course, homosexuality). Why are they overlooking all the other “sins” the bible suggests?

Click the jump for a list of all the crazy things the Old Testament says are also sins.

A recent plodding column byThe Enquirer’s Krista Ramsey asked the red herring question in its headline, “So what if Tebow believes his audience is God?” Tebow, of course, refers to Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos who has a tendency to dramatically kneel down on the gridiron, close his eyes and pray before games.

Tebow’s showy, ultra-demonstrative displays have drawn some criticism. Although the player says he does it to honor God and get nonbelievers curious about his faith, many people counter the display is more about drawing attention to Tebow than to any divine entity or creed.